


A Note Unsaid

by ilarual (Ilarual)



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:26:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1284382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilarual/pseuds/ilarual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sudden loss rocks Soul's world, and the grieving process means confronting parts of his past he had hoped to let lie. Maka, for her part, does her best to support her partner, but managing her father for years was not adequate preparation for the Evans family...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Say Uncle

**Author's Note:**

> Finally getting this migrated over to AO3!
> 
> This strictly adheres to anime canon, not manga canon, which is not usually the way I roll but for the purposes of this story just go with it, because it gives me a bit more wiggle room with regards to what Maka does- or more importantly in this scenario, does not- know about Soul's family.

_"It came like a sudden gust of wind_  
 _Leaving them bewildered to ask how._  
 _I recall last time we met, you said we'd meet again;_  
 _The irony is only bitter now._ "  
 _-Vienna Teng **  
**_

* * *

"You can give me all the puppy eyes you want, we are _not_ buying a ten pound gummy bear, Soul."

"But Maka... it's a _ten pound cherry gummy bear!_ "

Maka rolled her eyes. For someone who was- _hypothetically_ \- a grown man, Soul Eater could be incredibly childish when he wanted to be. "Yeah, and if we buy it you'll eat it all in a single night and make yourself sick... _again_. Put it back."

Soul shrugged. "Fine," he said with a pout she was pretty sure he hadn't meant for her to see, and which she found far cuter than she probably should have. As he turned away to take the enormous red confection back to wherever he'd found it, she heard him mutter, "Candy police."

"I heard that!"

"You were supposed to," he shot over his shoulder.

Maka smirked, and swung their shopping cart around to tail him back to the candy aisle just to be absolutely positive he wouldn't try to find a way to sneak the enormous gummy bear anyway. Soul had the self-control of a toddler when it came to food, and sweets in particular, as she had learned all too well over the years.

A few years ago, grocery shopping was an individual chore. As with everything else in the Albarn/Eater household, they took turns, one of them trudging a few blocks down to the corner grocery store to get their necessities for the week. If Maka did their grocery runs for the week, then Soul took care of the laundry, and vice versa. When he cooked, she took care of the cleaning and if she took out the trash, he did the dishes. They had established the routine when they were twelve years old and it had served them well for years.

Somewhere along the way, however, the individual chores had blended and blurred at the edges and the chore chart Maka had made years before had fallen into disuse. If Maka was washing the dishes, Soul was right there with a towel to dry, and if he was vacuuming, she was running around the living room like a mad thing with a featherduster. Similarly, the process of buying groceries had become a joint effort.

Maka couldn't say she minded in the slightest. Soul's company was rarely (if ever) unwelcome.

Once she had ensured that no monster-sized candy was going to find its way into their shopping cart without her consent, she hauled their shopping trip back on track by herding her weapon back in the direction of the frozen foods section.

As she was browsing the selection of frozen vegetables, Soul let out an annoyed grunt. "Green beans from a _bag_ , really?"

"Well, what's wrong with that?" She knew the answer to that, because they had had this exact debate no less than thirty times over the years, but it was a well-rehearsed dance by now and she wasn't about to miss a step.

He glared at the bag she was holding as if it had done something to personally offend him. "They don't taste as good."

"There is literally _no_ difference between the taste of fresh and frozen beans, Soul."

"Says you."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, because your palate is _so_ much more refined."

"As a matter of fact-"

"Oh please, you and I both know you'll eat anything put in front of you!"

"Not true!"

"Yes true!"

He huffed in mild annoyance. "Only when we've been on a mission and I'm starving!"

"Which is always."

"Even if that was true, why not eat something that tastes _better_ if you have the choice?"

Maka set the bag aside, already knowing how this was going to go but not quite willing to let it go just yet. "I don't know, maybe because fresh produce costs more and even with your salary as a death scythe it never hurts to be fiscally responsible?"

It was Soul's turn to roll his eyes. "Maka, the thirty-cent difference isn't gonna break the bank, okay?"

Which, admittedly, was a really good point. Once they had graduated and their spot on the pay grade had increased from the stipend allotted to students to the salaries afforded a fully-fledged death scythe and three star meister, they were certainly able to afford a few of the finer things in life. It was a decidedly pleasant change of pace.

"Alright fine," she conceded. "Go get your stupid fresh beans."

Maka tried very hard not to laugh at the pleased grin on his face as she gave in, or the way his ordinarily lackadaisical slouching walk picked up into an enthusiastic half-jog as he headed in the direction of the fresh produce. Soul's ridiculous over-enthusiasm when it came to food was oddly endearing after all this time.

"And don't say I never did anything for you!" she called after him, smirking at his retreating back.

Her relationship with her weapon was hard to define. Officially speaking, they were friends, and they had been friends for so long that she honestly had a hard time remembering when he _hadn't_ been in her life. They had shared quarters for almost that entire time. Although they'd upgraded to a larger living space and left their old apartment to Crona and Blair just before their graduation from Shibusen seven months earlier, the comfortable certainty of coming home to the familiar rhythm of life with Soul hadn't changed a bit.

By the time they were sixteen, their soul bond had elevated to such a degree that they were nearly always in a low-level state of connectivity, not quite on the level of resonance but more than adequate to feel the familiar brush of each others' soul. It wasn't unheard of among pairs that had been bonded for as long as they had, and much like their unusually high resonance rates, the effect was more pronounced between them than was usually seen. Maka loved it, loved the comforting feeling of having her partner's consciousness only a heartbeat away from her own, always nearby. She didn't think her head would feel quite right without the reassuring hum of Soul just beyond the edge of conscious thought.

They had only become closer since she had made Soul a death scythe only a few short years previously. Their goal was accomplished but their work was just begun, and since Maka already had plenty of experience helping Soul manage his black blood, Shinigami-sama had seen no reason to separate them after Soul earned his new title. They were the dream team of Shibusen and everyone knew it; splitting them up would have made no sense, and Maka was grateful for it.

The idea of being separated from Soul hurt.

Actually, it hurt a lot. It was quite normal for the partnership between a weapon and meister to be a life-long bond, but it also wasn't uncommon for partners to separate or trade off, depending on the situations they were confronted with and the skill combinations required for various missions. Flexibility was a survival tactic in their line of work. Nevertheless, Maka couldn't even begin to comprehend the idea of wielding anyone else. They might bicker a lot (these days it was rare for them to actually _fight_ , but they never had given up the well-worn habit of pushing each others' buttons), but Soul was her best friend, her partner. She could count on one hand the number of times they had been separated for more than a couple of days since they were _twelve_. They were all tangled together in the composite entity of Soul-and-Maka; to deconstruct that was practically an impossibility in her mind.

After all, she loved him. And _that_ was what made their relationship so difficult to define.

It wasn't as if he didn't know. It was impossible to hide something like her growing romantic feelings for him when they were resonating, just as it was impossible for him to conceal the utter contentment he felt when they curled up together to watch a movie or the way the sight of her in a pretty dress made his heart pound twice as fast as normal. She knew he could sense her feelings, because _she_ could sense _his_. His affection for her leaked through their bond every day, emphasizing and amplifying her own feelings. This thing was mutual and they both knew it. They just hadn't taken that last step from friends to... _whatever_ it was their relationship had been building towards all these years.

Maka was sure their friends thought it strange that they hadn't gotten around to saying out loud what they both knew was happening, but she didn't. She and Soul had always done things on their own schedule. It had taken them forever to learn to successfully resonate, but now they had one of the highest resonance rates in history. It was the same with their relationship: they would take the leap when they were ready.

And if that might be taking a little longer than it had to because Maka was frightened of letting down the last simulacrum of a barrier between them, then so be it. It wasn't as if either of them was in suspense as to whether their affections were unrequited. They could take their time and enjoy the anticipation, right? Soul would be patient with her. She didn't even have to ask if he would wait, because even without the benefit of the revealing bond between them, she was pretty sure he knew her well enough to understand the reasons for her delay.

That was how it had always been, Soul able to read her as easily as an open page while she struggled to understand the inner workings of his mind. In some ways, Soul was as much of a mystery to her as he had been on that very first day when he had bared his soul to her in the form of a haunting, maddened melody. She knew him so well, knew his likes and dislikes and all his weird quirks (of which there were many), knew what his hair looked like first thing in the morning before he'd had a chance to tame it with hair gel, could read the most minute changes in his body language with pinpoint accuracy.

Despite all of that, however, he remained something of an enigma. His moods and opinions were clear to her, but the thought processes that went into them were a great deal harder to work out. Equally mysterious was where her partner had come from. Soul never talked about his past if he could help it. She knew he'd grown up out East (Connecticut, he had mentioned once), and obviously he'd studied music from a very young age, but beyond that she knew very little. He'd made it clear very early on in their partnership that his childhood and family were sensitive subjects, and she didn't push it. Someday, she was sure, he would let her in on that part of his life.

"You gonna buy that ice cream or just keep trying to melt it with your brain?"

Maka jumped at the feeling of Soul's breath against her skin and the sound of his deep voice so close to her ear. "Soul!" she exclaimed, not even making what would have been an utterly futile attempt to hide the flush that crept over her cheeks. "I swear, you're worse than Blair with how quietly you walk! Give me some warning next time you're gonna come creeping up on me!"

"I did," he said dryly. "I said your name like three times."

"...Oh."

"Space cadet." He tugged on one of her pigtails playfully, then glanced back at the little container she was holding. "So are we getting the, uh... _peppermint fudge-ripple supreme_ or what? Jeez, that sounds gross."

"I will never understand your aversion to peppermint," she muttered.

* * *

After completing their purchases, Maka and Soul walked back home, cheerfully debating the merits of cinnamon toothpaste and its' hypothetical advantages over the traditional mint-flavored variety. They each carried a small mountain of paper grocery bags in their arms and contented smiles on their faces.

As Soul attempted to balance a number of his bags against his hip in order to unlock the front door of the modest little brownstone, Maka faced a similar struggle as she tried to reach down to pick up the rolled-up newspaper waiting patiently for them on the doorstep. Gravity nearly got the best of her as the jug of milk she was carrying almost tumbled to the floor, but she caught it at the last moment, forgoing her free hand with a huff of annoyance.

She glanced up and was met with the sight of Soul smirking at her in amusement. "What?"

"You know, you could just set something down."

Maka finally managed to snag the paper and stuff it into one of her bags, right beside the dry cereal. "Says the boy who just performed a three-limbed juggling act just to get the door open."

He shrugged. "Guess I'm just more talented than you," he suggested, giving her that cocky grin that absolutely did _not_ give her stupid fluttery butterflies.

"Or maybe you're just full of crap," she said, hip-checking him out of the doorway to precede him inside and cheerfully ignoring his sputtering complaints.

They set about unpacking their groceries with a fluid ease and familiarity that stemmed from having lived together for almost half their lives, to say nothing of the soul bond between them. They didn't need to speak, moving around and past each other as they went about their task nearly on instinct. The contents of the grocery sacks all but flew to their respective places in the cabinets and refrigerator. Simple daily chores had become, for them, almost as easy to complete in tandem as their graceful battle form... albeit with significantly less chance of serious injury.

Once they were finished, Soul set about making himself a sandwich while Maka settled herself at the kitchen table, unfolding her hard-won newspaper with the intent of bringing herself up to speed on world events. She started with the international pages before working her way through the national news and eventually down to local events. It was a habit she had taken up during the months that Asura's madness wavelength had run rampant across the globe. She had been fascinated by the pattern shifts that could be detected in human behavior around the world as the madness began to leech into the subconsciousness of susceptible people; she had been captivated with tracking the subtle changes that could be read writ large in world events that would have been undetectable to anyone who didn't understand the cause behind them but which appeared glaringly obvious to her.

Part of her fascination, she could admit now, had stemmed from her need to understand madness itself. The black blood that ran in her partner's veins had been a weight on her mind in those days even more than it was now. A part of her had hoped that if she could only understand the way Asura's wavelengths affected other susceptible people around the world, she might be better able to help Soul manage his own weakness to madness. Looking back, she was glad she had because, as had been proved during that final battle, even she had underestimated the potency of the black blood and the toll it had exacted on Soul.

With Asura defeated and his wavelength neutralized, madness in all its forms had a far less powerful hold on the world and the need to study its movements around the world had become far less pressing. Still, the habit had remained, and she faithfully read the Death City Sun-Times each day when it arrived on their doorstep.

"Anything interesting?" Soul asked, his tone making it apparent that he could not possibly be less interested in the contents of the paper. Maka shuffled the pages a little to hide her grin at the realization that her weapon just wanted to talk to her.

"Eh, nothing much," she replied. "Kilik made the international section again."

"Yeah? What for?"

Maka skimmed the article. "Apparently he and the twins took out three pre-kishin at once... in downtown Buenos Aires."

She didn't even have to look up to vividly picture Soul's grimace. "Bet that was messy."

"Looks like it." Kilik was an extremely skilled meister and Fire and Thunder, now approaching fourteen years of age, were a very powerful pair of weapons, but their combined skill set was not really well-suited for crowded urban environments. Too many explosions by far. Flashy elemental weapons certainly packed a punch, but were far too unpredictable and chaotic, in her opinion. Maka far preferred working with Soul.

Soul stuck his head in the fridge, rooting around for their freshly-bought jar of mustard. "So, not much happening besides Kilik costing Shibusen a small fortune in cleanup costs?"

"Guess not," Maka said, passing disinterestedly over an article about stock market trends. "Wait, no, it looks like there was a plane crash in upstate New York."

"Bummer," Soul remarked, shutting the fridge with the mustard clutched triumphantly in hand.

She nodded. "No kidding. I guess it could've been worse, though. It came down in the mountains a couple days back, so it wasn't in a big urban area or anything, and only one person died. It says here it was a little private jet, belonged to the man who was killed. Some violinist, apparently."

Soul froze very abruptly on his way back to the counter where his half-finished sandwich was waiting. "What?" he asked.

Maka glanced at him curiously. His soul had abruptly gone... for lack of a better word, _rigid_. "Uh... I said the plane's owner was the only fatality," she repeated.

"Yeah, I heard that," Soul said in an impatient tone she recognized but couldn't logically connect to a sad but fairly innocuous newspaper story. "You said the guy was a violinist, right?"

"Um, yes? Soul, what-?"

"What's the name?" he interrupted.

After a moment of staring in puzzlement at her suddenly tense partner, Maka returned her eyes to the paper. "It says his name was, uh... Wesley Evans."

The jar of mustard shattered on the tile.


	2. Over and Out

_"_ _Run for cover and you'll find us there  
To take on the anguish, make it disappear  
When hand grenades and napalm flames  
are leaving you tonight..._"  
 _-Alkaline Trio_ **  
**

* * *

Maka looked uncomprehendingly for a moment at the shattered jar of mustard, its contents spilled across the tile and her partner's shoes, before raising her eyes to meet Soul's gaze. What she saw there terrified her. His face was bone white, crimson eyes burning as he stared right through her. His empty hand was still raised and he didn't even seem to be aware of his surroundings.

"Soul?" she asked tentatively, setting the paper aside and rising to her feet.

"W-Wes?" His eyes were suddenly fixed intently on her, his stare intense. "You said Wesley _Evans?_ "

"Did you know him?" she asked. It was the only explanation for Soul's reaction.

Soul nodded, the muscles in his jaw tense. "He's my brother."

Maka had to pause for a moment to ascertain that she'd heard him correctly. It wasn't all that surprising that she didn't know, for Soul _never_ talked about his family, but somehow she'd always thought of him as an only child like herself. "I didn't even know you had a brother," she said stupidly.

"You're... you're absolutely sure you're reading that right?" he asked, as if he hadn't heard her. Maybe he hadn't.

Maka glanced down at the newsprint she was still clutching in her hand.

_...sole fatality being the plane's owner, world-renowned violinist Wesley Evans, who was on his way home from San Francisco, where he recently performed a concert series._

She looked back at Soul and nodded. "Yeah," she said quietly.

"And this happened... when?"

Another brief study of the paper commenced before she answered, "The plane went down in the early morning three days ago. It says emergency services reached the site and took the pilot and the two crew-members to the hospital by midafternoon." She didn't have the heart to come straight out and say that Wesley Evans, _her partner's brother_ , had been dead on impact, but Soul was smart enough to read between the lines and hear what she wasn't saying nonetheless.

Soul let out a choked scoff. "They didn't even bother to _call_ ," he said. His hands were trembling.

Maka felt glued to her seat and supremely useless to boot. Internally she was screaming at herself to get up and hold her partner, because he looked like he was about to collapse in on himself... or at least _say something_ for Death's sake! Despite this, however, her tongue felt like lead and her mind was utterly free of any words of comfort. What could even be said in a situation like this? She was good with words, usually, but she was coming up empty this time. Perhaps she should have reached out to him through the link, but Soul's end of their bond had shut down abruptly, leaving a sharp silence in her head and a cold emptiness where ordinarily his soul would have been, warm and close to hers. The sudden isolation threw her off-balance, and so she just sat there staring at Soul as he stared at a spot on the floor, and wished she could remember how to stand up.

Abruptly, Soul turned on his heel and left the kitchen.

It took her a second to process his departure, but in a shorter time than she might have expected given that she had felt turned to stone only moments before, Maka was on her feet and hurrying after him. She turned the corner just in time to see his feet vanishing up the stairs to the second level.

She hurried upstairs after him and tapped gently against his closed bedroom door with her knuckles. "Soul?" she asked softly.

Silence.

"Soul?"

He still didn't respond.

"I'm coming in."

She reached for the handle, mentally preparing herself for whatever state her partner might be in.

"Don't." His voice was quiet and a little unsteady, and she hesitated with the doorknob already in her grasp.

"Soul...?" she queried.

"I just want to be alone for a little while, okay?"

He sounded so _tired_ , and Maka was sure she had never loathed a piece of wood in her life as much as she did the door separating them. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yeah, I-"

A hesitation.

Then, "Just let me think for awhile."

Her instinct was to disregard her partner's words, throw open the door, and hug him until the world was fair. But she had to respect his wishes and boundaries, and she knew that only too well. Maka sighed.

"Okay," she said softly. "I'll be in the living room if you need me."

Ever so reluctantly, she abandoned her place by the closed door and made her way to the top of the stairs, where she paused. For a minute or two she stood there, trying to work her head around what had just happened. Everything seemed a little surreal all of a sudden.

Maka came to a precipitous decision. Retracing her steps up the hall, she entered her bedroom and retrieved her laptop from its spot on her desk before she padded back downstairs to the living room, feet whisper-soft on the burgundy carpet.

Plopping down on the couch, she flipped open the computer and Googled the name Wesley Evans. She didn't know if researching your partner's deceased family member constituted an invasion of privacy, but she wasn't sure if Soul would be willing to tell her himself and she needed to know. Besides, Maka had never been good at sitting and doing nothing. She had to occupy herself with something, or she was going to end up marching straight back up those stairs and breaking into Soul's room no matter what he said. She knew her partner, though, probably better than she knew herself. The time would come when he would need her to ignore his boundaries no matter what he said, because Soul had a deeply-ingrained habit of isolating himself and refusing to let anyone help with his problems, but that time had not arrived yet. So for now, she needed a distraction.

The internet, it seemed, had a great deal to say on the subject of Wesley Evans, known to his friends and family as Wes. He was a world-class musician, proficient in viola, cello, and upright bass, and considered by some to be the greatest violinist alive at only thirty years of age. He had first performed as a guest soloist with the London Philharmonic at the age of seven, one of those rare child prodigies that inevitably fascinated the public with his talent. He had won countless awards, recorded four albums including a Christmas album and a collection of Puccini arias transposed for the violin, and performed in virtually every major venue in the world over the course of his career. He was, for all intents and purposes, a superstar in the classical music world.

It was, apparently, only to be expected of a child of the Evans clan.

Maka was distantly familiar with the reputation of the legendary Evans family. Anyone who knew anything about music had to be. Although she considered herself to be musically illiterate (Lord only knew Soul had tartly informed her she was plenty of times!), she had done hours upon hours of exhaustive research into composers and notable performers and the incomprehensible nuances of form and style in an attempt to understand her partner better. She didn't think she'd succeeded particularly well in that goal, but she _had_ garnered a sufficient lexicon of musical trivia in the process... and part of that mental library happened to include an awareness of the Evanses.

Another few minutes of research refreshed her memory and expanded on what she had read years before. Wes Evans' late grandfather on his mother's side had been the most reputable name in the construction of large pipe organs, an exceedingly profitable business which was now overseen by the deceased gentleman's wife. Their youngest child and only daughter, Lynette Deforest, had married renowned flautist Christopher Evans, originally of London. They had had two sons, one of whom was the famous Wesley Evans. The younger son, according to the biographical article she had unearthed, had left his family nearly a decade earlier to attend private school, and had not been seen in public with them since.

Maka stared at the name on the screen. Soul Evans. There it was in black and white.

She had always known that Soul Eater was a pseudonym. Everyone did. It was way too pretentious and unlikely not to be. Neither she nor anybody else had ever been able to coax his original name out of him, however.

Soul had been very popular during their school days. Still was, in fact, despite his increasing annoyance with what she had not-so-lovingly dubbed his "fan club." Part of it, she suspected, was the sheer mystery of him. No one, except possibly Lord Death himself, had any idea who Soul had been before he stepped out the front gate of the Death City airport nine years prior. He never spoke of his family or his childhood, and if it hadn't been for certain extraordinary circumstances, she was pretty sure no one but herself would have ever known he was a gifted pianist. Speculation and rumors had gone around the school from time to time. He had escaped from a bad household with an alcoholic mother... he was an orphan who had been raised by a distant relative who couldn't wait to get rid of him as soon as his weapon form manifested... he wasn't actually human at all but some kind of demon...

That last had been far more prevalent during their early years at the academy, before Soul had stopped obsessing about his image and actually become cool well-liked, and definitely long before their peers had gotten used to his unusual looks. Whenever Maka had heard that particular rumor, she had taken to making sure whoever was spreading it at the time regretted it. _Deeply_.

When all was said and done, there was a certain aura of secrecy to him that she supposed had drawn people in. For her part, she had mostly made fun of him for being deliberately mysterious and stubborn.

It had never bothered her much that she didn't know of Soul's past. He kept his memories from Before locked up tight during soul resonance, and she didn't press him about him. She didn't need to know where he'd come from to know _him_. Now that she did know, however, she wondered why he'd never told her.

It did explain, though, how a boy with a penchant for leather jackets and motorcycles could play so beautifully.

The stairs creaked and she looked up to find her partner standing before her. His hair had been shaken out of its artfully intentional disarray, as if he'd been running his hands through it, and although his eyes were dry they looked a little wild and hysterical.

"Soul?" she asked, setting the computer aside and getting to her feet. "How are you?"

He ignored her question. "You looked him up, right? You looked up my... my family?"

She nodded.

He blew air out his nose heavily, fingers twitching nervously at his sides. "So... there's that," he said. There didn't seem to be much else to say. His carefully-guarded past was out in the open between them now. It was what it was, and they both knew it.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, voice so strained and shaky it broke her heart. "I don't... I mean... I guess I have to go back, right? But... _shit_ , Maka, they didn't even _call_...!"

Before he could get another word out she had her arms around him in a tight hug. He collapsed into her, his veneer of calm crumbling as he held so tight to her it was a little hard to breathe. Maka couldn't remember if she had ever, ever seen her beloved weapon so rattled, and simply held him, the fingers of her left hand threading through his hair as he buried his head against her shoulder. She realized he was trembling.

There really were no words for something like this, nothing she could say that would make it okay. All she could do was rub comforting circles on his back and reach out to him through the bond, wordlessly reaffirming her presence spiritually as much as their embrace did physically. She felt his end of their link come alive once more, his soul pressing against hers anxiously. Maka couldn't recall if she'd ever felt so much chaos within him in all the years they had been together, even with black blood running through his veins. There was a hard, sore lump in her throat.

"I have to go back," he repeated.

Maka nodded, her cheek sliding past his.

"Shit," he mumbled against her shirt. "We have a mission next week, and I'm supposed to meet with Justin for-"

"I'll take care of it," she interrupted. "Just let me worry about that stuff, okay? I'll call Shinigami-sama later and let him know we're going to take a leave of absence for a little while."

He leaned back just enough to see her but not enough to leave her embrace. "We?" he asked tentatively.

"You don't think I'm gonna make you deal with this alone, do you? I'm coming with you." She faltered, reconsidering. "That is, if you want me to...?"

Soul closed his arms tight around her again. "I want you to come. I... think I might need you there."

She couldn't bring herself smile right now, but the corners of her lips twitched ever so slightly. "Then I'm going to be there."


	3. Pompeii

_"_ _But if you close your eyes,_   
_Does it almost feel like_   
_Nothing changed at all?"_   
_-Bastille_

* * *

Soul had fallen asleep on her shoulder during the flight. Maka really couldn't blame him. He had barely slept the night before, thinking too much to be able to rest. His head had been so loud it had made Maka's own sleep fitful at best. It wasn't surprising that he was exhausted enough to fall asleep despite the crowded airplane and the pervasive odor of hamburger meat that filled the cabin.

She stayed as still as possible so as to let him get the sleep he desperately needed. Or maybe it was just because she wanted to keep him close to her. The weight of him leaning against her was familiar, and his breath was warm on her neck. When they touched down at Bradley International, it was with no small amount of regret that she shook Soul awake.

His garnet eyes blinked drowsily at her for a moment before he became fully aware of his surroundings, and Maka couldn't be bothered to suppress the thought that it might just be the cutest thing she'd ever seen.

Soul was dressed a little more nicely than usual in a pair of nice khaki slacks and a black button-down. It wasn't as formal as one of his suits, but Maka had noticed that he had packed every single one of those into his suitcase, which had both informed her what kind of attire she should be packing and prompted her to bring an iron.

He retrieved their carry-on bags from the overhead bin, then pulled down their coats.

"You're really gonna want this," he informed her as he buttoned up his own jacket. "It's gonna be cold as a bitch outside."

He was quite right, too. Early November on the East Coast was a cold and rainy affair, so despite Soul's protests, they rented a car in lieu of his preferred motorcycle. They muddled through the "assistance" of an overly perky attendant at the rental agency who spent more time talking at Maka about his budding career in interpretive dance than actually helping them fill out the requisite paperwork, and were presented at last with the keys to a sleek black sedan.

They made a hasty escape from the young attendant and out into the parking lot where their chosen vehicle was waiting for them. Maka made for the driver's side, but Soul halted her.

"Let me drive," he insisted.

She frowned. "You _always_ drive."

"That would be because we're always on the motorcycle and if I let you drive you'll kill us."

"Exactly. Now I get the chance to drive for a change. I'm a perfectly good driver! In a car, anyway," she protested.

He shrugged. "I just figured since I actually know my way around the area we could save a few wrong turns this way."

She rolled her eyes and handed the keys off. "Suit yourself. Just pop the trunk so I can put our bags in."

He did as she requested and she loaded their luggage into the boot while Soul proceeded to get behind the wheel. Once she had successfully stowed their belongings, she joined him.

Soul turned the key in the ignition and dropped his hand to the gearshift, but didn't shift into reverse. After a moment's lengthy pause, Maka glanced at him curiously.

He was looking dead ahead with a blank empty stare, sitting rigid in his seat with hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel and gearshift respectively. Despite how tightly he was gripping, however, he seemed to be lost in thought. She could feel his soul through their bond, jittery and nervous but also somehow detached from the present.

"Hey." She tapped his shoulder lightly. "What's wrong?"

Soul returned to the present, relaxing his grip and glancing at her for a second out of the corner of his eye. He let out a sigh and sagged backwards, scrubbing his hands tiredly over his face as his head thumped against the headrest. "It's just... really weird being back here," he said.

"We've been in this part of the country before on missions and stuff," she pointed out.

"But I knew then that there was a snowball's chance in hell of me having to run into my family. It's one thing to be on a stealth mission in fucking _Norwich_ of all places, but..." He sighed again and let the sentence trail away vacantly.

Without thinking about it, Maka reached out to rub his forearm reassuringly. "But what?" she prompted.

Soul's mouth tightened into a sour little scowl. "I haven't talked to my parents since I was thirteen, Maka."

"Why not? What happened?"

"It's a long story. I don't wanna bore you."

His tone was deceptively calm but very firm, and she recognized it instantly. He didn't want to open up. Maka was very used to her weapon deflecting personal questions of any kind, even from her, and ordinarily she let it slide because if he didn't want to share that was his business. Now, though, she felt like maybe he needed someone to press him to talk. "Give me the CliffNotes version," she suggested, squeezing his arm with the hand that still rested there.

A tiny spark of wry amusement flared up in his eyes. "Maka Albarn: Model Student is asking for CliffNotes?" he teased. "Are you sure you don't have altitude sickness from the plane ride?"

She lifted her hand from his arm to smack him playfully on the shoulder, but she wasn't letting him distract her. "Don't avoid the subject, Soul," she insisted.

He grimaced, but gave in. "I've never had the best relationship with my parents, 'specially my dad," he said wearily. "Finding out I was a weapon was the best damn thing that could've happened to me, because it got me the hell outta that house. I came to Shibusen and met you and we became partners and stuff and... it was great. Best my life had ever been at that point."

He stopped, apparently pondering the best way to explain himself. More hesitantly, he continued, "About two years after we partnered up, my dad called. We'd been at the Academy about two years at that point. Apparently he'd decided that was long enough for me to learn to control my weapon form. I wasn't _dangerous_ anymore." The amount of sarcasm Soul poured into that statement was impressive even by his standards. "He asked- well, _ordered_ me is more like it- to come back to Connecticut. As far as my folks were concerned, once I had enough control not to be constantly destroying stuff on accident, I'd gotten everything of value out of Shibusen there was to get. I think they thought of it like sending the problem child off to military school or something."

"Soul..." Maka murmured, wanting to say something but totally at a loss for words.

"I said I wasn't leaving. Obviously." He chuckled, the expression on his face dark and bitter. "He told me that they'd managed to cover up where exactly I was pretty well so far, but if I didn't come back it was going to start getting harder to explain away where I'd disappeared to."

Maka's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "But why-?"

"-Did they hide it?" Soul guessed, able as always to finish her sentences if he chose. He snorted. "You really are naive sometimes, aren't you? Maka, the rest of the world isn't like Death City. People aren't quite so open-minded everywhere. I'm surprised you've never noticed it when we've been out on missions, how nervous normal people get around me. The prejudice against demon weapons is pretty widespread."

Maka's jaw dropped. "How did I not know about this?" she asked, momentarily side-tracked from her concern for her partner.

"Um, because you pretty much grew up in fucking Disneyland, as far as being a weapon is concerned?" Soul suggested. "In Death City, it's a good thing to be a weapon. But in the rest of the world... well, it's sort of like this weird combination of respect because we protect ordinary people from the shit that goes bump in the night and also a lot of fear and mistrust. It can get nasty."

She stared intently at the temperature controls on the dashboard without really seeing them, processing this particular piece of information. She'd been aware of tension in the past between weapons and ordinary humans from her history classes, but she'd always thought of that in the past-tense, not as an ongoing problem. But that was something to think about later. Filing the subject away for contemplation later, she refocused on her partner.

"So your parents didn't want anybody to know that you were a weapon because it would- what, embarrass them?"

He nodded. "Exactly. I was a shame on the family. Well," he amended bitterly, "more of one than I already was, anyway."

"And if you just went home once you'd learned to keep your weapon form under control, then-"

"Then nobody finds out, it's all nice and tidy and they get to go back to pretending they have the perfect fucking family."

Maka winced. "Ouch."

Soul shook his head. "Nothing I wasn't used to, to be honest." He didn't elaborate on that statement, and Maka's curiosity was piqued as to just what he meant by that, but she had to focus on the matter at hand. She could feel Soul through the link, still fretful and unsettled, but calmer than he had been. He didn't know how to handle being this honest about his past; it was way outside his comfort zone. Maka sent soothing feelings back at him, not sure how best to support him but offering what assurances she could without words.

"So you turned him down and that was it?"

His eyes slid away from her as he nodded. "Pretty much, yeah. I haven't talked to my mom or my old man since then. I have written to my grandmother a few times, though, and sometimes Wes-"

The most horrible look crossed his face, and Maka could tell that for a few minutes he had actually forgotten the circumstances that had brought them to Connecticut in the first place. The bond vibrated with his emotional shock as he choked out, "Wes called every so often. To check up on me."

Maka didn't have the slightest clue what to say in response to that. She could feel confusion and guilt and something else dark and unpleasant she couldn't identify rolling on his end of the link. Maybe this was the part where she was supposed to say all the right things and help him find the strength he needed to face his family, but what was there to say? Her words wouldn't fix the past or make the death of his brother any less real. She reached out to grab his hand, because Soul had always responded better to physical reassurance than empty words, but as she tried to twine their fingers together, he pulled his hand away. It was the first time she could ever remember that he had openly rejected contact between them, physical or otherwise.

She gave him a questioning glance, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. "We should get going," he said gruffly. "It's over an hour to Stamford from here."

* * *

They merged onto the I-95 southbound around New Haven, at around the same time that the melancholy sky gave up and a light sleet began to fall. The occasional glimpses Maka had been getting of the iron grey water of the Long Island Sound when the highway took them close enough to the coast were obscured by curtains of rain. She hummed in dissatisfaction. The water had been on the opposite side of the car as it was, but she didn't get to see the ocean that often, living where they did, and she liked to take every opportunity to look at it.

Soul silently switched on the headlights and windshield wipers.

He hadn't said much since they'd left the rental agency parking lot. The last time he'd spoken had been just after he turned on the radio. He'd fiddled with it for a minute, trying to find a tolerable station and eventually settling on a classical pops channel without too much static. He'd asked her if the selection was okay (more out of courtesy than of any real expectation that she would have an opinion on the matter, she suspected) and been silent ever since.

Maka wanted to say something to break up the weighty quiet inside the car, but his soul felt prickly and unresponsive, and she doubted he'd be receptive to conversation at the moment. She kept quiet and watched the towns they passed go by through the window, passively observing the residents as they hurried about their business and sought shelter from the weather, huddled under umbrellas.

Soon enough they arrived in Stamford. With so much familiarity Maka would never have guessed that he hadn't been back here since his preteen years, Soul guided the car through the slick streets and straight to what she was absolutely sure was the most affluent neighborhood in the city. Eventually, he turned off the main road and onto a private drive that wound up a low hill. When they emerged from behind the screen of trees and pulled to a stop in front of the house, Maka could not have stopped her jaw from dropping if she'd tried.

The Evans family home could only be described as a mansion. Soul had talked her ear off about architecture enough that she could recognize the Georgian style when she saw it. The brick facade and colonnades flanking the front door, the green-painted shutters (purely decorative she was sure) and the widow's walk along the slanted rooftop gave off an air of stately, refined elegance. It only just barely escaped being pretentious, and Maka felt as if she had strayed into a period novel by mistake.

"You lived _here?_ " she asked, wide-eyed.

"Uh-huh."

"But it's-"

"Yeah, I know."

"It's got to be as big as the Gallows! Maybe bigger!" she sputtered.

Soul scoffed. "The Evanses don't really get that whole "moderation" thing."

She wrenched her eyes away from the house to stare at her partner incredulously. "Soul, that house is three stories tall."

"Technically four if you look at it from the back, since it's built into the hillside," he replied dryly. His expression was a wry flavor of neutral, but the bond hummed with his sincere discomfort as he glanced between herself and the house he had grown up in. "Quit gawking, Maka. You'll start catching flies in your mouth if you don't shut it."

She shook her head. "Sorry. I'm just having a hard time picturing you living here."

"Yeah. Well. I always did clash with the décor."

There was a bitter quality to his tone that Maka had only heard from him since learning his family history, and only when the subject of his past and family came up. Her eyes strayed back to the mansion. She realized that she didn't even need to know the details to know that Soul's childhood might have been privileged, but it clearly hadn't been _happy_.

"C'mon. Let's just get it over with," he muttered, killing the ignition.

Maka got out of the car, pulled her coat closer in defense against the chill and the sleet, and followed Soul up to the front step.

He stopped, staring at the forest green door in front of him. "They've repainted the door," he remarked absently.

She glanced up at him, and took notice of the fact that for once he was standing up straight. It was a small difference, but Maka didn't need to feel his soul to know it meant he was very uncomfortable. Soul wasn't the kind of person to display his feelings openly, but she always knew. She reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing his fingers. This time he didn't pull away.

He let out a barely imperceptible breath, then rapped on the door with surprising violence, pointedly ignoring the doorbell. After a brief wait, during which Maka fidgeted impatiently and pretended not to notice how hard Soul was holding onto her hand, the door was opened by an unmemorable woman who appeared to be in her late thirties with her auburn hair bound up in a no-nonsense bun. Her eyes widened visibly upon seeing Soul, but to her credit that was the only indicator she gave that there was anything untoward about the young man's unusual appearance.

"May I help you?" she asked, politely neutral.

"I'm guessing you're my mother's latest housekeeper?" Soul guessed, blunt as ever. Before the woman could reply, he said, "My name is Soul Evans. I'm here to see my parents."

She appeared a great deal more surprised by the name than by his looks. She let out an audible gasp and immediately stepped aside, ushering them into the house quickly. As they passed through the doorway, Soul dropped Maka's hand.

Maka couldn't help but stare a little. The floor in the foyer was beautiful white-and-grey marbled ceramic, with a frankly ostentatious crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. Everything was done in shades of white and soft grey, with accents of pearl pink bringing just enough color to the room to avoid being excessively sterile. The whole effect was elegant and tasteful, if not just a little austere. In comparison, their cozy little brownstone back in Death City seemed quite drab... but much more comfortable, she thought.

"My apologies, Mr. Evans," the woman was busy exclaiming once Maka brought her attention back to the other two. "I didn't realize we should be expecting-"

"I wasn't expected."

"Ah. I-I see." She seemed flustered by his curt tone, but recovered quickly. "May I take your coats?"

Soul opened his mouth and Maka could just _feel_ that he was going to brush her off, possibly quite rudely. She stamped down preemptively on his foot and, ignoring his yelp of pain, offered a friendly smile to the older woman. "Thank you," she said kindly, allowing the woman to help her out of her heavy jacket.

"Ow, _geezus_ Maka, that hurt!" Soul whined.

"Well then be nice," she hissed at him.

He glowered at her but said nothing more. He allowed the housekeeper to take his overcoat from him without comment.

"I'm sorry about him," Maka said apologetically.

"It's quite alright, Miss-?"

"Albarn. Maka Albarn." In an attempt to make up for Soul's sudden surly disposition, she asked, "What's your name?"

"Andrea, Miss Albarn."

Soul spoke up, "Are my parents at home?"

"Mr. Evans is out at the moment, but Mrs. Evans is in the sitting room. I'll show you in."

He shook his head. "No thanks. I still remember my way around this place."

Andrea looked uncertain, and glanced to Maka for confirmation. In this instance, Maka was willing to follow Soul's lead, so she nodded. "If you insist," she said, a little hesitantly. "I'll... just hang your coats then."

Soul touched Maka's wrist, indicating silently that she should follow him.

Before they had made it out of the foyer, Andrea called after them: "Mr. Evans?" When Soul glanced back over his shoulder at her, she murmured, "Um... my condolences. I'm so sorry for your loss."

He gave a jerky little nod. "Yeah. Thanks."

He picked up his pace to evacuate the room as quickly as possible and Maka followed closely behind him.


	4. Dust Bowl Dance

_"_ _I've been kicked off my land at the age of sixteen  
And I have no idea where else my heart could have been  
I placed all my trust at the foot of this hill  
And now I am sure my heart can never be still"_   
_-Mumford & Sons_   


* * *

The rest of the house was as tastefully ostentatious as the foyer. Maka had thought that, having spent so much time at the Gallows, she was ready for anything the Evanses could dish out, but she hadn't even _met_ the rest of the family yet and she was already a little overwhelmed. It wasn't so much that it was really any more extravagant than Kid's home, truth be told. She thought it might just be the disorienting adjustment to realizing that this was where Soul had grown up. This showpiece of a house, all muted colors and expensive rugs draped across marble and hardwood to muffle passing footsteps, walls adorned with works of art she strongly suspected were originals... _this_ was where her twisted, sarcastic weirdo of a weapon had come from.

She thought she might understand his comment about clashing with the décor now.

Soul guided her with sure steps through a series of rooms whose purpose Maka had a hard time discerning. She always had had a difficult time figuring out why anyone would need more rooms than they had a use for, and it was extremely obvious that the Evans home had a great deal more space than it had people to put in it.

Soul paused just shy of the doorway to what she assumed was the sitting room. He shot her a glance over his shoulder and briefly she thought he might speak. His expression was impassive, but there was something faintly like panic in his eyes for a moment. Then even his eyes shut down on her, and the link went quiet. Maka suspected he was deliberately closing her out. It wouldn't be the first time.

Soul took a deep, near-silent breath, then turned away from her and stepped through the doorway.

When Maka followed, she found her eyes immediately drawn to the woman perched on the window seat in the bay window that dominated the eastern wall of the room, eyes turned outward. This, she assumed, was Soul's mother.

She wasn't totally sure what she'd been expecting. Maybe some part of her had assumed that Soul took after his parents. A glance at the middle aged woman dispelled that notion immediately. But then, Maka had always known that her partner was something of a genetic anomaly. She didn't know why she was surprised to see that his mother didn't look a thing like him.

Although she was seated, it was obvious that Mrs. Evans was tall, slender but with broad shoulders. Her hair was a warm honeyed brown, streaked with gray about her temples. Her skin was a light olive tone. She was tidily dressed in a black pantsuit, with a string of pearls around her graceful neck.

Soul was standing stock still a few steps into the room, his feet just brushing the edge of the ornate black and gold rug that spread across most of the floor. After a moment of silently observing her, he cleared his throat loudly.

Although she had appeared lost in thought, she didn't startle at the sudden intrusion... at least, not until she turned her eyes fell on the two people standing just inside the doorway, her eyes widened and her hand flew to her chest, graceful fingers splayed across her clavicle in shock as she let out a soft blew a soft breath out through his nose.

"Hey, Mum," he said.

The woman rose to her feet and crossed the room in quick, measured steps. As Maka watched, she wondered whether natural grace was just something all mothers possessed, because from what she could remember of her own mama, Kami had moved with the same fluid ease.

Lynette Evans stopped in front of Soul, staring at him in open shock. She wasn't even an inch shorter than her son. "Soul?" she murmured. Her voice was low, rich and sweet, and she spoke with a posh accent. "Is that really you?"

He shrugged. "Figured I should come back, given the circumstances."

Her closed lips squirmed slightly, a visible but subtle effort at restraining some strong emotion. She reached out and laid her hands on his cheeks, tilting his face toward her so that she could study him intently with bright hazel eyes.

"You've grown up so much!" she said. "You were so little when you went off to school..."

Soul pulled back, slipping out of her grasp. "Yeah, I know."

"My lord, you're going to be twenty soon, aren't you?"

"Yep." Maka didn't know how Soul managed to be so completely expressionless and yet still somehow manage to convey such utter distaste for this whole situation. Or maybe it was just because, no matter how hard he tried to hide from her, she could still feel him humming discontentedly on the other end of the bond.

Mrs. Evans' keen eyes turned away from Soul for the moment and settled on Maka, who abruptly experienced a profound certainty that she was being weighed, evaluated, and judged. She resisted the urge to fidget, and wished she could tell whether she had been found wanting.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce your friend, Soul?" she prompted with a pointed glance back at him.

Soul edged a few inches closer to Maka. "Right- Maka, this is my mother, Lynette Evans." The older woman pursed her lips slightly, one eyebrow raised at Soul's order of introduction. "Mum, this is my meister."

"Scythe technician Maka Albarn," Maka spoke up, extending a hand politely.

Mrs. Evans dredged up a smile stained with grief, but genuine, and took her offered hand. Maka took note that her grip was gentle, almost delicate, but still firm. Those searching eyes were still studying her, and Maka had to actively work to keep her returned stare from being actively challenging. Her partner was visibly uncomfortable and it was putting her on the defensive instinctively, but Soul's mother seemed like a nice enough person. She didn't want to offend her.

"It's lovely to meet you, Miss Albarn."

"Likewise," Maka replied. "I'm just sorry it has to be under circumstances like this."

The older woman's eyes went distant and sad, and she nodded.

Soul cleared his throat. "Uh, anyway... we'll be in town until after the funeral. Which is... when, exactly?"

She stared at her younger- now only- son with the strangest look on her face. It was some combination of wonder, hurt, and cold anger that Maka couldn't for the life of her understand. She surveyed Soul for a moment with conflicted eyes before saying stiffly, "We're organizing two ceremonies. The open memorial is on Thursday. Your brother had many admirers and fans, and we thought it would be fitting to allow the public to mourn him as well. The funeral itself will be for family and close friends only, and it is scheduled for a week from yesterday, since Saturday is the earliest your grandmother could realistically be here."

"So Gran is flying in?" Soul asked, and Maka saw the tiniest bit of tension leave his posture.

"Of course. But she had some business to take care of with the company that couldn't be put off, so we've been doing what we can to accommodate her schedule."

"Good. It's... good... that she's gonna be able to make it," Soul said with a jerky little nod. "We'll just get out of your hair then." He made to edge out of the room.

Lynette blinked confusedly. "Get out of my hair? And go where?"

"Maka and I need to get set up in a hotel and-"

"What? A hotel? In _this_ town?" She made a disgusted face. "Goodness, no! No son of mine's going to be staying at a Best Western. You'll stay here, of course. Heaven knows we've enough room for you both!"

"Seriously, Mum, it's f-"

"No," she overrode, "I won't hear of it. Your old room simply needs fresh sheets put on your bed, and Miss Albarn will certainly be more comfortable in one of the guest bedrooms than she would in some dingy chain motel room."

Maka wondered if Soul's mother had any idea just how hard he was struggling not to roll his eyes.

Apparently deciding the matter was settled, Mrs. Evans said, "Excellent. Now that's settled, then. Give Andrea your keys, Soul, and she'll get your things from the car."

* * *

The guest room was on the third floor of the house. It had a large double casement window that looked out over the garden, and was softly lit by a pair of tasteful wall-hung lamps on either side of the canopy bed. The _queen-sized_ canopy bed, Maka mentally amended. Who the hell had a queen-sized bed in the guest room? And this wasn't even the largest or nicest guest room in the house, either. Maka had chosen it because it was right next door to Soul's childhood bedroom.

Soul had insisted on carrying his own bags up, and his mother had insisted on showing Maka personally to her room. Maka had set about unpacking her suitcase to prevent her clothes from becoming any more wrinkled than they absolutely had to be the instant Mrs. Evans had made up her mind that she was "all settled in" and left her alone.

Maka mechanically unfolded a small collection of nice blouses and hung them in the freestanding wardrobe that rested against the south wall of the room, thinking hard. She had known since yesterday morning that her partner had come from a privileged and wealthy family, but it was one thing to read Wikipedia biographies of the musical powerhouses that were the members of the Evans family and quite another to meet his mother and see the _literal mansion_ he had grown up in. If she had to describe the sensation, she supposed "culture shock" might be appropriate.

The sound of a throat being cleared made her look up from her task. Soul was standing in the doorway, looking slightly lost. His posture had been unusually straight the whole time they had been speaking with his mother, and he appeared to be trying to make up for it now. His shoulders were hunched more than was typical even for him, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his khakis.

"Hey," she said, offering up a small smile.

His lips twitched and he seemed to take that as an invitation over the threshold, because he immediately came in and flopped heavily down on her bed as if all his bones had spontaneously dissolved. "So..."

"Your mom is _English_ ," she said, because that was what was most prominent in her thoughts at the moment. She had been going back through her memories of their earliest days of partnership, and realized that in the early days she could now place the source of the very slight accent Soul had spoken with years ago. It had been faint enough that she'd never quite been able to tell if she was imagining it or not, let alone been able to place it. That was one mystery solved, anyway.

Soul squirmed a little to get more comfortable on the mattress. "Whole family is. I was born in Salcombe, in Devon."

" _Really?_ "

He shrugged. "Don't really remember it. When I was seven or eight months old, my parents packed up and moved us here. Wes was like ten then, and he'd just got into this really prestigious prep school program over here in the States. I've only been back to the UK a couple times since then. Mostly for missions with you, and a couple times before we met to visit family and stuff."

"Oh." _How had she never known any of this?_ She finished hanging the last of her clothes, then moved to join him on the bed, lying sideways across the mattress so that they were eye-to-eye. "Your mom seems nice," she observed.

"Yeah, she's okay," he said. "She's a lot more laid-back than my dad, at least, but..."

"But your relationship's still complicated, huh?"

Soul snorted, and nodded. "Who _don't_ I have a complicated relationship with?" he muttered.

She nudged his shoulder. " _We're_ not complicated," she reminded him.

And it was true. Their relationship might be full of complex feelings and many different layers of affection interspersed with more than a small dash of annoyance and frustration, but when it came down to it, they were simple. Maybe they hadn't always been so straightforward, but the longer they were together, the easier it had gotten. The pieces had fallen into place, and m hadn't gotten around to confessing out loud, but they both knew how things were. They loved each other in every sense of the word. They were partners and best friends and there was that overwhelming element of romantic love that had crept in along the way. Maka supposed that there was even a dash of familial love in there somewhere; not like a brother-sister thing, not in a million years, but... Soul _was_ family to her. Sometimes, when she was feeling especially sentimental and fond of him, she thought about the way that they had come together, just a couple of kids who couldn't rely on their blood relatives, and formed a strange little family of just the two of them, and it made something warm in her chest.

No, she and Soul were _complex_ , but they weren't _complicated_. In fact, she was willing to bet that their partnership was the one truly uncomplicated thing in their lives. Soul was the one person she knew she could trust unconditionally with anything and everything, and he knew (she _hoped_ he knew!) that he could rely on her, too. Anything he needed, she had his back one hundred percent.

Her verbal affirmation of this didn't seem to reassure him any, though. Maybe he didn't quite take her meaning, she didn't know. His only response to her statement was just to nod and close his eyes, a frown creasing his mouth.

Maka stared at him as they lapsed into taut but comfortable silence for a minute or two. Even sprawled out on the bed with his legs dangling awkwardly off the side and his eyes closed, he still seemed tense. Every time she had noticed this over the course of the day, it was a surprise all over again. Soul was very good at relaxing (or at least giving a very good appearance of being relaxed), so seeing him all wound up like this was strange.

"I feel like I'm seeing this whole other side of you," she observed.

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her, expression searching. "I haven't changed any."

She shook her head. "No, I know. I just... meeting your mom and finding out all this stuff about you... it fills in some missing pieces, you know? Some stuff about you makes more sense now."

He tilted his head a little more toward her. "What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Well, you used to have an accent, for one thing. Now I know where that came from."

"I did? Really?"

"Just a little bit. And all this time I thought you were just lazy by nature, but really it's just that you grew up... like this." She made a sweeping gesture, implying the entire Evans silver spoon lifestyle.

Soul made a sour face. "I'm not some spoiled rich kid, Maka."

"I know that. I'm teasing you, genius," she said.

"Oh."

She raised her eyebrows. "You really are out of it, aren't you?"

"Yeah... I..."

Maka scooted closer, so that their faces were only a few inches apart with their cheeks resting on the coverlet and their sides pressed close together. "I know," she said, softer than before. "I know."

Soul made a painful expression that Maka thought was supposed to be a smile.


	5. This Is Your Life

_"_ _You gotta be stronger than the story  
Don't let it blind you  
Rivers of shadow  
This feeling won't go"_   
_-The Killers_   


* * *

Andrea put in an appearance not long after Maka had gotten her things organized. She poked her head into the room to inform them that Mr. Evans had arrived home and dinner would be served in an hour. Maka didn't miss the skittish way she hovered just outside the doorway, or the nervous way her eyes flitted over Soul, or how she addressed Maka instead.

Once Andrea had dashed away, Soul hauled himself up from Maka's bed, grumbling unintelligibly. "I'm gonna go change for dinner," he said.

Maka looked askance at him, curious and incredulous. "Wait, _you're_ going to change for dinner? Half the time I have to convince you to put a shirt on to come to the table!"

Soul's mouth pressed into a tight little line. "Yeah, well, things work a little differently here," he said tersely. "You'd better change into something nicer, too."

Maka glanced down at her white satin blouse and black pencil skirt in consternation. "Nicer than this?" she asked uncertainly.

"Trust me. It's easier to just play along and not rock the boat."

He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it even more of a disorderly mess than usual, and Maka suddenly felt that in that one statement she had learned more about her partner's life before Shibusen than anything else he'd said about his family. She had the profound desire to run across the room and hug him, but she didn't know if he'd understand why, so she stayed perched on the mattress.

Soul turned to leave, but paused in the doorway. Throwing her a glance over his shoulder, he said, "You packed that green dress, right? The one that matches your eyes? You always look nice in that."

Maka watched him go, flustered and flushing and cursing her weapon's apparently pathological need to be enigmatic.

Still, she took Soul's advice and zipped herself into the emerald silk concoction that fell just to her knees. She also reluctantly stabbed a pair of earrings through her earlobes, a painful process that left her ears red and stinging since she rarely wore jewelry and her piercings had nearly healed over. She wouldn't have bothered, but she didn't want to seem dowdy and plain beside the stately elegance of Soul's mother. For good measure, she tucked a sparkly barrette into her silky fine hair to hold the long locks back from her face.

Once she deemed herself presentable, she stepped out into the hallway and found Soul leaning against the wall outside. He had changed into a navy suit over a light blue button-down, with a matching tie. His hands were jammed deep in his pockets and he was hunched over, staring at the carpet.

"You didn't have to wait for me," she said.

"Just delaying the inevitable a little while," he replied, in that voice he probably thought was the perfect flavor of indifference but which Maka had seen right through for years. Then he glanced up to look at her and smiled slightly. "You look nice."

"You suggested it," she reminded him.

He tipped his head in acknowledgement. "Guess I did, didn't I?"

And that was it. No crack about her fashion sense or how he'd always had excellent taste. He'd been like that all day, and Maka wasn't surprised under the circumstances, but it still hurt to see. He was more withdrawn than he had been so many years ago when they had first become partners, and that was saying something because it had taken her months to get him to open up back then. But now... it was like someone had put her partner on mute, turned down the volume of his voice, his soul, everything.

He straightened up, pushing off the wall without removing his hands from his pockets. "Listen, whatever my parents say... just ignore them, alright? They mean well- I think- but they can be really critical."

Maka nodded, confused but determined to be reassuring because it seemed like Soul needed it. "I grew up with Spirit Albarn and a pair of really old-fashioned Japanese grandparents. I think I can handle any kind of crazy your family can dish out."

Soul shrugged. "If you say so."

He led the way down to the dining room, and Maka suddenly found herself grateful that he had waited for her after all because the house still felt like a confusing maze to her. She said as much, and Soul snorted.

"Yeah. When I was a little kid, Wes and I used to have crazy games of hide and seek whenever he was on holiday from school."

He grinned at the fond memory, and Maka was pleased to see his smile. She could almost picture Soul as a young boy running around these halls with his older brother, and she was heartened to learn that he had at least some good memories from that period in his life.

His good mood only lasted as long as it took to reach the first floor. Maka caught the sound of quiet conversation coming from somewhere nearby and Soul's expression immediately dropped back into dull-eyed neutrality. When she noticed that his posture had straightened up, apparently unconsciously, she sent a pulse of reassurance and silent support through their bond. She caught the way his eyes flickered momentarily to hers and the flare of gratitude he sent back her way, and then he was closed off again, striding forward.

Maka managed not to gape at the enormous crystal chandelier that hung over the dining room table, but only just barely. Did these people not know the meaning of subtlety or restraint? Just because you had money didn't mean you needed to spend it on frivolities! Admittedly, it was a very _nice_ chandelier, and she supposed if she had a home that could accommodate such a thing and the money to purchase it, she might be tempted by it as well. Still, it was all so unnecessary.

Mrs. Evans was seated at the end of the long table nearest the door, and she turned around to smile thinly at them as they entered. Maka nodded her head politely in response, and found herself very glad she had heeded Soul's advice and put on nicer clothing. Her gaze was then drawn to the opposite end of the table where Mr. Evans sat.

Christopher Evans did not look much like his younger son. They shared the same high cheekbones and broad shoulders but that was about it. His hair was silver as well, but it was the result of age rather than a natural lack of pigment as in Soul's case. He had piercing blue eyes and a very square jaw, complete with a dimpled chin. His bearing was austere and the only sign that he was a man in mourning was the skin beneath his eyes, which was puffy and bruised-looking.

He glanced up from his plate as they entered, his eyes scanning over Soul's face quickly and intently before turning his gaze on Maka, who once again felt the same sense of being measured that she had experienced the first time his wife had looked at her. She wondered perplexedly whether it was all in her head or if she really was being judged in minute detail by these people. For Soul's sake she deeply hoped it was just her own nerves at meeting her partner's parents getting out of control; she couldn't imagine growing up constantly under such scrutiny.

After what felt like an uncomfortably long time, but was really only a few seconds, Mr. Evans looked back at his son. "I see your mother wasn't playing an elaborate prank on me when she said you'd come home," he said dryly. His voice was light and pleasant and not at all like Soul's rumbling baritone.

"Nice to see you too, Dad," Soul replied, sarcasm dripping from his every word.

"Is it really." It wasn't phrased as a question in the slightest. "Hm. Surprising, that. I seem to recall the last words you said to me being... hm, now what were they?"

Soul sighed heavily and opened his mouth, but his father beat him to the punch.

"Ah, yes. That's right. I believe you said I could 'take my ignorance and self-righteous pretension and stuff it up my-'"

"Christopher!" Lynette burst out, cutting her husband short. She turned to her son and said, in a rather gentler tone, "Soul. Both of you, please don't do this tonight. There's no need to bring up all that old unpleasantness. Now, of all times, we should be acting like a family."

None of them missed the tiniest quaver in her voice throughout the last sentence, and both men looked instantly contrite and somber.

"Now, Christopher, this young lady is Soul's meister. Her name is Maka Albarn. Miss Albarn, this is my husband and Soul's father, Christopher Evans," she said.

"Delighted to meet you, I'm sure," Christopher said, inclining his head politely in Maka's direction.

"And the same to you," Maka replied, hoping she didn't sound as stiff as she felt, because the sentiment most assuredly was _not_ mutual. Her protective instincts towards her weapon had already been put on high alert by nearly every word that had come out of the man's mouth. Maka was always willing to reevaluate a first impression, but Christopher Evans had not made a good one.

At a polite gesture from Lynette, Soul and Maka took seats on opposite sides of the table, halfway between his parents. They gazed at each other uncomfortably across the centerpiece.

"I hope you don't mind that we started the first course without you," Lynette said. "As I recall, Soul, you were never overly fond of cucumber salad."

Soul gave a terse little nod. "Not my favorite, no."

The rest of the salad course passed in uncomfortable silence. Maka discovered that she also was not overly fond of cucumber salad.

Once Andrea had served the main course, which turned out to be roast lamb, Lynette attempted to enliven the stilted atmosphere with conversation. "So, Soul, tell us a little about what you it is you do," she requested politely.

Soul, who had been glowering at his plate while he sliced with what Maka thought was unnecessary aggression at his slice of lamb, glanced up at his mother and shrugged. "What's to tell? I turn into a big sharp scythe, she wields me, we kill bad guys. End of story."

"Don't point with your silverware, dear," Lynette said in that absentminded way mothers have when reminding children of their manners for probably the eight thousandth time.

"Surely it must be more complex than that," Christopher interjected, staring intently at his son. "Since you were so eager to throw away everything we'd given you for that kind of lifestyle."

Soul turned an impassive face to his father. "As a matter of fact, there is a little more to it: the part where Maka and I risk our lives every damn week so that ordinary people like you can keep living your lives without having to constantly worry about being slaughtered or possessed or any of the other nasty shit that kishin can do to people."

"Language, Soul!" Lynette called, looking highly unamused. It took Maka a moment to remember that people who didn't face their own mortality constantly (or, alternately, just people who didn't have the dubious honor of being friends with Black*Star) might not be as desensitized to the kind of sailor's mouth most Shibusen students developed before too long.

Soul's lips pressed into a thin line and he returned to his meal, stabbing morosely at a bit of asparagus with his fork.

"Well," Lynette added, "It certainly sounds like an... _exciting_ career."

Maka had to hold back a snort. "You don't know the half of it," she said.

"Oh? Do tell."

She wasn't sure how much she should say. They were in what her mother would have called "polite company," and bathing in the blood of your enemies wasn't really something you brought up upon first meeting someone, even if you did happen to do it for a living. She glanced at Soul for a cue, but he was busy stuffing his face as politely as possible and glaring at every bite.

"Soul's not wrong when he says it's very dangerous," she ventured. "It's a high risk field. I suppose you could compare it to being in the military... or maybe the FBI. Although I'm sure civilian criminal justice workers don't deal with the sorts of threats we do."

Lynette nodded. "Ah, yes. Sometimes we hear things on the news... it seems just terrifying!"

"Speaking of which," Christopher interjected, "I must admit I was very surprised when I first saw you. Lynette had mentioned Soul had brought his technician along, but I wasn't expecting someone like you."

Maka frowned. "What do you mean?"

He gave a little chuckling laugh. "Nothing against you, of course, young lady. You seem very sweet. But I would have thought that a pretty girl like you would-"

Soul jumped to his feet with a clatter of discarded silverware, cutting off his father mid-sentence and making the table lurch. Water and wine glasses wobbled dangerously and every eye at the table was drawn to him. "Stop right there," he said, in a tone that Maka had first heard when he was crouching over her prone form, growling at Professor Stein: defensive, angry, fierce, and utterly unyielding. "You want to do that nit-picking thing you love so much on me, fine. But you leave Maka out of it."

Christopher stared at his son, mouth hanging open slightly in surprise.

In a valiant attempt at a calm, controlled tone, Soul turned to his mother and asked, "May I be excused, Mum? I'm not feeling very hungry."

Lynette gave a shell-shocked little nod, and Soul beat a hasty retreat from the dining room, leaving his parents and Maka sitting in stunned and uncomfortable silence behind him.

Maka learned a few things in the few seconds she sat there after Soul left, watching Christopher and Lynette stare at each other down the length of the table. The first was that they were almost as good at communicating with each other non-verbally as she and Soul were. The second was that, if the absolute shock on their faces was anything to go by, that kind of outburst was something they had never seen from their son before.

After a few moments of sitting in silence, Maka also got to her feet. She glanced from Christopher to Lynette and opened her mouth a few times, trying to come up with something tactful to say, but all she could come up with was to blurt out "I'm sorry" and all but flee the room- though she was proud of herself for remembering to push her chair back into the table despite her haste. That was the polite thing to do, right?

* * *

It took her a few minutes of wandering around the house before she found Soul. At first she had thought he would go back to his bedroom. That was what he usually ended up doing when they had fights back home. However, once she got back upstairs she found that this wasn't the case, and ended up checking quite a few empty guest bedrooms before she got to the back end of the house and spotted him through a pair of French doors, standing out on the third floor balcony.

He was leaning forward with his hands braced on the balustrade, shoulders hunched, and he was perfectly still except for his fingers which were tapping a frantic rhythm on the stone beneath his hands. He was staring out over what Maka eventually saw was appeared to be an expansive garden, although it looked a little sparse with the approach of winter.

"Why is it that I always end up finding you on balconies during formal events?" she asked, aiming for casual.

Soul snorted. "I don't know what you're talking about. That was a casual Evans Family dinner." His tone was heavily laden with irony.

Maka reached out and laid a gentle hand on his arm. "You okay?" she asked seriously.

He shrugged, but didn't look at her. "I was kind of expecting that, to be honest. My dad- well, he and I have always had trouble seeing eye to eye. Sorry he went after you, though."

"First of all, whatever misogynistic crap he was about to spout off would have been nothing I haven't heard before. Second... you didn't have to defend me, Soul."

"It's my job to defend you." His eyes were fixed on some point far off in the distance, and that intensity from before was back in his voice.

"Yeah, from crazy motherfuckers with fangs trying to rip my head off, not from your own relatives!" she said with a light laugh, and she was pleased when Soul gave a small smile of his own, though he still didn't look at her. "I told you before I can take anything your parents can dish out. I know this trip is hard enough on you already. Don't make it more difficult by arguing with your parents on my account, okay?"

Soul finally turned his head to meet her eyes, that tiny smile still still tugging at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were soft and more expressive than she'd seen them in days. She became aware that her hand had taken up gently stroking his arm through the fabric of his jacket, and she pulled it back as casually as she could.

"What?" she asked, when he didn't say anything.

He let out a soft puff of laughter. "Did I ever tell you you're amazing?"

Maka felt herself flush bright red and glanced away shyly, staring determinedly down at the garden instead. "Shut up," she sputtered.

He grinned at her embarrassment.

She struggled to recover her composure and calm her fluttering heart enough to look up at him after a minute and say, "Your mom seems nice."

Soul nodded, and turned around to rest his elbows on the balustrade, his legs kicked out in front of him. "Like I said. They're not bad people," he said, tilting his head up to stare at the cloudy sky. "They're just... not my kind of people."

What else could she say to that? As much as she wished she could make this whole sad visit easier on her partner, she knew from bitter experience that sometimes there was just no fixing family problems.

They stood there in contemplative, comfortable silence for a few minutes until Maka could no longer ignore the goosebumps creeping up her arms and shivered.

Soul glanced at her. "You cold?"

"No," she muttered.

He raised an eyebrow. "You grew up in Death Valley. It's November in Connecticut."

" _Fine_ , I might be a _little_ bit cold."

He snorted again and straightened up, reaching out to rub his hands up and down her arms a few times, warming her with friction. "C'mon, let's get inside. It's cold as balls and there's nothing to see out here anyway."


End file.
